I know why I am lifting my head in back swing – the posture

I found another obvious reason why I am lifting my head in back swing. I’ts my posture!

Went to a driving range today. I like the nets, and I can judge whether I am hitting the ball well, but I don’t get to see the actual flight. And today it was again educational. I recorded a number of shots with my hybrid and my 7 iron and I found another reason why I am lifting my head in back swing.

I wrote a few weeks ago that the golf swing is easy. That’s just silly. If that were true, there would be many more good golfers out there. I don’t actually know anyone who has a decent swing. I want to be the first person I know with a great golf swing. 🙂 A few more weeks, I think.

Today at the range I kept hitting the balls, trying to correct some issues, but I was not hitting it right. I tried to hit with a very open stand, and guess what? A very nice swing, effortless, very long and very accurate. I concluded that my backswing is still bad. I found it much easier to get a good and powerful backswing when my stance was very open. I know that I am not very flexible; actually far from it, so I blamed it on that.

Proper posture and my posture. I need to raise head and drop shoulders

It’s true. I need to get more flexible. One of my goals this year is to take up yoga. Apparently great for stretching among many other things. In the mean time, how can I improve my golf swing?

I recorded about 10 minutes of me hitting the balls at the golf range and I just analyzed the footage. I found another issue, and a major one at that. My posture is not proper. I stand over the ball too hunched up. My head buried in my shoulders. I am trying so hard to get into a good initial position, I am completely tense.

That is why my arms can’t rotate back under my head without lifting my head in back swing and coming out of posture. No matter how hard I try to keep my head still, when I rotate in the backswing I have to lift my head. And I completely lose the position. There is no way I can get back to the same position on the way back.

Not just because I lift my head, but also, because my shoulders are very high in the initial position, but stretched at contact. I have to manipulate so much of my swing to even hit the ball, not to mention trying to do it acurately and consistently.

Next time I’m at the nets, I’m working on getting better posture. Relax and drop my shoulders. Will record the session to see how I go with the new improvement. I spent half a day at the golf range and golf course today. Hit 125 balls and did probably 15 holes.

I could hit the ball nice when my backswing was short. Great extension, high ball flight and quite accurate, but that was not the norm. At the short 11th I hit 5 balls. 3 landed on the green with 2 inside 1 meter of the hole, the others not far either, but my swung maybe 40% with the pitching wedge.

I believe my main issue now is the backswing, When I fix that, I will be able to correct many other problems and hopefully become much more consistent. Next week… the journey continues 🙂